Generally, an analyzing system such as a liquid chromatograph analyzing system is not composed of only an analyzing unit which has a liquid supplier, a column, a detector, and other units. It is usually a combination of a plurality of units including an analyzing unit, a control unit for controlling the analyzing unit, a data processing unit for receiving the signals provided from a detector and analyzing them and for creating a chromatogram with the elapsed time assigned to the horizontal axis and the relative signal intensity to the vertical axis (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
Configuring the system by combining independent units as in the aforementioned case facilitates the maintenance of each unit, compared to the system in which all the units are unified. In addition, with this configuration, it is relatively easy to combine different kinds of units. This has the advantage that the configuration of the product can be easily modified to suit the needs of the user. Furthermore, as long as the units are connected to each other, each unit composing the analyzing system can be placed in physically different places.
In the case where a plurality of units are included in an analyzing system and they cooperate to perform some kind of processing, one unit among them functions as a commanding unit and another unit functions as an executing unit so as to cooperate with each other to perform the processing. For example, in a preparative separation system in which a sample separated by a chromatograph is fractionated into components, a fractionation operation is performed by the cooperation of a detector for detecting the sample components eluted from the chromatograph and a control unit for instructing, upon receiving the detection signal, a preparation unit to fractionate the sample. In an overlap injection data collection system in which a next sample is injected while one sample is being analyzed by a chromatograph, multiple units cooperate with each other. Such units include a detector for detecting the sample components eluted from the chromatograph, a data processing unit for performing, upon receiving the detection signal, a data processing such as a peak detection and analysis, and a control unit for providing an instruction for injecting a sample into the chromatograph.